Port Side

Recently we did a kayak exploration of the Fort Pierce port and points north. This was another new adventure for us, with quite the sights. The port itself was quiet, except for dredge barges and tugs anchored out and awaiting good weather to get back out into the inlet to dredge more sand. There was one 230 ft. mega-yacht at Derecktor Shipyard called 'Freedom'. There was also a ship called 'Angel' in the world's largest travel lift (we believe this ship brought supplies to Abaco following Dorian). It looked tiny compared to 'Freedom'.

As we paddled north along the shore, we came across the tug 'Dawn Star' that does youth training.

We also got a chance to see this old Trumpy motoryacht that we view in the distance when we cross the north bridge each time. Although it was probably gorgeous back in its heyday, it is now almost a derelict with water being pumped out of one of the ports in the side (look closely and you can see the water coming out by the rust spot in the back).

One of the small commercial marinas had what looked to be a Mark 5 Navy Seal special operations vessel, which was similar to the one we visited on land at the Seal Museum a couple of years ago.

Between marinas, there were quite a few older houses and this one even had palm trees growing out of it!

We made it has far as Riverside Marina and this boatyard has lots of hurricane damaged boats in it. Look at this poor trimaran...

These were Sunsail and Moorings Charter catamarans that were damaged. We didn't recognize any of the names from pre-Dorian charter boats in Abaco, so they were most likely from the last hurricane in the Virgin Islands. 

This trawler was down to the hull.

The most interesting part of our trip was when we came across this huge dismasted sailboat anchored just off the Derecktor Shipyard. It had brand new docklines on it and towing plates welded on the bow, so it most likely had just been towed in from afar and was perhaps awaiting haul out for repairs. Later Dave did some online research and discovered that this 165 ft. yacht had quite a history. Back in Hurricane Wilma, 'Legacy' dragged anchor in Key West and ended up aground in the shallows of a marine sanctuary (there were millions of dollars of lawsuits for this). It sat there for quite some time since it was in 3 ft. of water and needs 11 ft. to float. Eventually a trench was dredged to get it free, and it ended up in Key West and then went to a boatyard in Freeport, Bahamas. After that no one had heard anything about it for years. Hopefully it will get refurbished to its former glory.

We never know what we are going to come across when we are exploring, and this was one trip we can do again and again and see different things each time. One of the fun things about kayaking is all the tight places we can get into to see everything up close.

😎